New Year's Resolutions: Part II

Having rehashed last year's resolutions it is time to move on to resolutions for the coming year. And I chose some biggies. I've always been big on the resolution making mainly because it is an opportunity for self-reflection and it gives us free-spirits a definite timeline.

Let me begin by saying that I've, thankfully, just read "Women Food and God" by Geneen Roth, which has helped me figure how I'm going to go about accomplishing this year's resolutions. The book is really about weight loss, but I found that her approach can be applied to just about anything a person may abuse in their lives be it food, drugs, TV, fb, etc.

The first resolution is to cut meat out of my diet. There are many reasons for this, the top being that it is difficult and expensive to find sustainably raised meat and fish, especially here in Hawaii. Having watched movies like "End of the Line," and "The Cove," and reading about the impact meat production has on the environment, particularly our oceans, I just can't do it anymore. It is highly unrealistic to think I can be an overnight vegetarian, even though meat is not something that appears on my plate every night, so I'm gonna take it day by day and not beat myself up over wanting a piece of chicken every once in awhile. And if I can get fish that's been locally caught, that's fine, but fish, especially has got to go. This is my humble plea to those of you who read this, to at least consider your fish consumption, watch the films I mentioned above and decide for yourselves.

Moving on to the second resolution, concerning drinking alcohol. Oh, crap, do I really have to deal with this? It's something that's been on the agenda for many years, but also a habit that has been difficult to give up. This is where Roth's approach comes in. She asks us to be mindful about what we are putting into our bodies and to look at the reasons why we are doing what we're doing. So my goal is to stop and think before choosing to imbibe, and really consider, is this something I really want right now, or am I trying to cover something else up? And if the answer is to cover something up, she asks us to go ahead and feel what it is we don't want to feel and face it without using whatever it is to numb it out. That's as far into as I'll go for now, we'll check back in on that next year.

So here's to a wonderful New Year to us all! May we discover ourselves.